Book Review: Warcraft: Legends by Richard A. Knaak

Warcraft: Legends Vol. 3 by Richard A. Knaak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This manga was a collection of short stories in the Warcraft world, from Fiend, where Trag Highmountain meets a new ally to help him (which I find pretty cool), and he did reach the Ice Citadel, Crusader's Blood, which was just god awful and was action-packed, but at the same time it was just terrible and I feel sorry for the forsaken and the blood elf mage that clashed with the Scarlet Crusade.

Also, screw the Scarlet Crusade, tbh.

I Got What Yule Need was such a cute Christmas story! I really liked how Krizz saved the little girl's father, but the ending felt like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And the last story, The Thrill of the Hunt, was actually pretty good, and I really liked how Hemet Nesignwary took care of the druid and the little cute animals.

My favorite story is the Christmas story and the Thrill of the Hunt. That was just it. The other two were okay, tbh, but the Scarlet Crusade one just made me mad as heck. But other than that, I really enjoyed myself and I would pick up another manga to read from Warcraft.

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Book Review: Blood Games: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel by Chloe Neill

Blood Games by Chloe Neill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The only person I know in Chicago is Harry Dresden, but now I know someone else: Merit and Ethan Sullivan. The Master and Sentinel of Chicago, who, I have to say, is very interesting and also very fun to be around. There was a murder mystery that I really didn't get at the end, and then the romance between Merit and Ethan was hot, but because he needed to focus on the trials that might make him King, he's been pushing her away...which, in my opinion, I do understand. At the same time, I was mad that he did that, even when she was trying to help him.

I really like the tarot card mystery aspect in the book, because when I finally figured it out and saw how confusing it can be, but when it clicks and you get it, that's when it starts to come together, and you start to follow the murder and the clues until you get to the end, where you find out it was all because of a jealous boyfriend who broke up with the girl he killed first and then wanted some more people to suffer...

But when you go after the one girl that could instantly kill you? And her boyfriend wants to rage?

Oh boy.

Not a really good place to be right now when said boyfriend has a whole bunch of magic roaring to get to you. But the friend was saved, and everything is fine...right???

Right??

Even when the new vampire queen, Nicole, dismantled the GP.

Um....brah??? You okay??? Did you hit your head somewhere???

So now what?

And what's with that weird note that appeared on Ethan and Merit's bed, ending with a cursive B.

...oh nooo fam. Oh noooo....

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Book Review: The village Library Demon Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So if you combine Jessica Fletcher with the supernatural, then you have this book. The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society was a fascinating novel, from the time you open the book to the end. You are sucked into the world of Winesap and how Sherry Pinkwhistle lives and tries to solve the murder of her dead boyfriend, Alan Thompson, a lawyer turned antique shop owner. With references to Poirot, Colombo, and Miss Marple, you get all of the cozy vibes, along with a side of the supernatural.

Sherry Pinkwhistle is a librarian serving the Winesap community, until one day her boyfriend, Alan, was killed inside his house. Even though she is known around town for solving murders, for this one, Sherry didn't want to do it. She tried to ignore it until a demon started to possess almost everyone in town, so she could solve the murder. Between solving the murder of her friend Charlotte's husband to the murder of Alan, how can one try and solve the murders at the same time?

Her talking cat, Lord Thomas Cromwell, nudges her along the way, giving her advice even though she was skeptical of the fact that her cat can talk to her now, but along the way she figures out who did kill Alan (it was shocking the girl who works for him) and not who I originally thought it was, which was the son. At the reveal, the son, Corey, became so jumpy and was willing to walk out, but the only thing he could be convicted of was the dope he hid behind a painting.

It was a fun book, a book I enjoyed very much the more I read it. The spirit taking on the form of her best friend and revealing that she liked the storytelling part, so she made up her own stories, made me a tiny bit weirded out, like the demon was playing and writing her own story so she can have something to read about when she's bored and out of her mind? But I still enjoyed it nonetheless and does this make me wanna read more of C.M. Waggoner's books? Maybe, one I get a chance to do so.

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Book Review: Villains Are Destined to Die vol. 1 by SUOL

Villains Are Destined to Die, Vol. 1 by SUOL
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My name is Brittany and I’m in love with Callisto and I wanna punch Derrick in the face.

So I have been avoiding this manhwa for a very long time for some reason, and now that I read it last night, I have to say that I really enjoyed this. Penelope Eckheart is the villainess in a mobile game, and every time you would play as her, you would die, multiple times. Now that the girl is in Penelope's body, she starts to act and play just like Penelope, only a whole lot different and a heck of a lot smarter.

For one, she called Duke Eckhart father, which unlocked her to speak freely and to finally use her own actions to tell the story of how she wanted to tell Penelope's story, then she had to deal wit
h her brothers, Reynold and Derrick-who I really hate TBH (Derrick, not Reynold, Reynold's a good petunia) and then we went to the Second Prince's Birthday party...

And, um...like most villainous men I fall for, I met and fell for Callisto Regulus who can fold me any kind of way and I'd thank him for it. Penelope remembers him killing her multiple times when she always play his route, so she tries to get him to kill her again so she can have the reset button...only to hold a sword against her neck and told her to find another way to tell him that she loves him.

....my brother in tyrant christ, I can think of FIFTY ways to tell you that I love you.

Dragging an assasin in the ballroom and scaring the crap out of everyone? Yes. Dang near breaking the assasin's ribs with just the hilt of your sword? Yep, uh-huh, that's why I love you, yep, break it a little more, I like his screams to be played on my spotify. Your red eyes that could be very close to crimson? Yesss.

But at the end, even when Penelope meets Vinter in the end of the garden (looking like Xavier Shen from LADS, I might add)she decides to go after the only love interest in the whole game that might actually love her--a slave knight named Eclise.

I cannot wait to get my hands on book two because it was so much fun. The artwork in this is is very well drawn and very well written, and I cannot wait to read on, to see how Penelope finds Eclise and deal with all the other problems in her life right now. Also make sure that Derrick gets punched in the throat. Dearly.


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Book Review: A Forbidden Alchemy by Stacey McEwan

A Forbidden Alchemy by Stacey McEwan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

To the many people telling me that this was SUCH a good book...

*In Sir Integra Hellsing's voice (the abridged version)* YOU WERE RIGHT.

This book has PEAKY BLINDERS vibes, with a mix of magic, tunnels, secrets, and the SLOWEST of slow burns I've ever read. I loved the fact that Nina Clarke is trying to save everyone and the town of Kenton Hill, and at the same time, she falls in love with Patrick Colson, the leader of the Miners' Union. It also kind of had a love triangle between Nina, Patrick, and Theodore, but to be fair, I really didn't give a flying crap about Theo.

AT ALL.

I wanted him to go away each time he showed up, all jealous of the fact that Nina was getting close to Patrick, and I felt like Theo was going to fight him. I was waiting for him to buck up and actually swing, but he didn't. At the end, he actually helped Patrick face the troops and try to help him find Nina, even when Patrick revealed his secret.

As for Patrick, reading his POV was quite interesting. I really liked how he tries to hide everything from Nina, only for it to turn around and bite him CLEAR across his behind when Nina kept asking fifty million questions and wanting to know about this and wanting to know about that. When the landslide happened and Nina jumped in to try and stop it, Patrick tried to stop her. He even thought something really bad had happened to her as she charmed the earth and saved his brother Gunner and all of the miners from the landslide. But Nina saved a LOT of people that day, and I was glad that she tried to protect Patrick at the end, when he revealed himself to be the alchemist.

I was shocked when he told her that-that the last alchemist died and he became the last Alchemist, mostly because I really didn't believe it. But as he explained how he became the alchemist, I understood it, even to it's painful end. This book was such a good book and I would read it all over again, to visit this world once more and be welcomed back to Keaton Hill again.

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Book Review: Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood

Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood made me feel...so, so seen in so many ways. I related to Belle more than I ever did to any other character that I've ever read. The way Belle is worried about other people, how she puts other people first before herself, and how she doubts herself...I was about 5 pages in when I realized that Belle is basically me in a book....if I were a witch working at a bookstore and rarely use magic. But this book wrapped me up in a hug as I kept reading, and I also kept cheering for Belle as she trains with Artorious to use her magic so she can become a witch.

I liked the learning aspects of the book because I felt like you were learning along with Belle as she learns how to do many things with her magic, and even when she starts to doubt herself, Arty tells her not to give up. That is why Belle is my favorite character throughout the book-you see her grow and learn her magic, to the point she faces her fears and does things she'd never thought she'd do.

From quitting her job and buying her beloved bookstore, to facing the women who have risen up to power by using dark magic and had killed their brother and blamed the other one. It was so painful to see how family hate can drive people to become power hungry--and I was glad that Belle stood up to them, even saving her best friend during the fight, thus completing the tasks in the grimoire that she was learning from. I was scared that she wasn't going to make it, her and Ariadne, but all in all, I really did enjoy myself, and I am going to read more of Lucy Jane Wood's books because this book was SO GOOD, and I enjoyed myself reading this book.

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Book Review: Love's A Witch by Tricia O'Malley

Love's a Witch by Tricia O'Malley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book just became my favorite book I've read so far this fall.

Love's a Witch felt like I was watching an episode of Charmed, but somehow the special guest star was Richard Armitage playing Knox Douglas. I don't know why, but he popped into my head when I was reading this book, and somehow it worked SO MUCH.

So Sloane MacGregor and his sisters came to Briarhaven because their grandmother told them to come back. The moment they stepped foot into Briarhaven, Knox came in and...grabbed the suitcase and told them to leave. Like now. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week, now. Sloane got upset and said, 'hell to the nah, we're staying' and told the house to never let him in again.

Ooof.

But throughout the book, we see both Sloane and Knox going head to head on a lot of things, and how Knox is trying too hard to get rid of the MacGregors. But when Sloane's powers come in on her twenty-fifth birthday, things get chaotic and also very romantic when both Knox and Sloane get together and things happen-like Sloane morphing her car into a dragon, mushrooms popping up everywhere, and her nearly burning the curtain down when she kissed him.

The ending almost made me cry when Knox got all of the townspeople that were related to the founding families to help the sisters try and break the snowy curse, and when they do, they find out that it's not over. I'd never thought that I would like Groupy x Grumpy but I did, and I enjoyed myself reading this book so much that I wanted to stay in this world. Tricia O'Malley did a fantastic job with this book, and I cannot wait to read more.

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Book Review: Silvercloak by L.K. Steven

Silvercloak by L.K. Steven
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This might be my favorite fantasy THIS YEAR. L.K. Steven, thank you for this book, and thank you SO MUCH for writing this book. A woman going undercover in a magical mafia to try and nab them? PERFECTION. I was rooting for Saffron to finally get her revenge on the Bloodmoons and to figure out what they're actually doing and stop them. I was hooked the moment I started reading this book, and I needed to know more about why Saffron wanted to bring the Bloodmoons down and to also expose them for what they were doing.

I did get worried that some of Saffron's contacts would get compromised, but the more I read and saw how she tried so hard to protect them, even when they couldn't even touch her because of the magic not working on her. I kept seeing her try and try over and over again to figure out what the Bloodmoons are hiding, while at the same time working with them to get what they want. When they face the Silvercloaks again, some of them are shocked that she's working for the enemy, while some of them knew that she was undercover, so they try not to hit her.

The ending of this book got me SO BAD. i wasn't even expecting it or that Levan, the son of the leader of the Bloodmoons, knew Saffron's secret. I thought she was keeping it on the down low, but that journal entry at the end told us, the readers, that we knew that she was a timeweaver, and that he was going to take her down.

Oh no.

Oh, Saff, girl, you are in BIG TROUBLE.

Especially when Levan and Lyrian are trying to bring back Lorissa.

Oh no, girlie.

Time to run.

I need book two right now to know what happens next, because that ending was BRUTAL. But I loved it nonetheless.

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Book Review: A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch (Glimmer Falls #2) by Sarah Hawley

A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch by Sarah Hawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sarah Hawley, you beautiful human you.

I am loving this series, and I really don't want it to end. I want this series to keep going because of how good it is, and also how fun it was. I was scared of the amnesia trope, but when she did it for Astaroth of the Nine and how it worked perfectly with the story, I loved it to bits. I really didn't like Astaroth in the beginning of the series. Still, with the second book all on him and how he travels with Calladia Cunnington to figure out how to get his memories back, it was SUCH a fun time that I want to read some more before the series ends.

This book touches on subjects like abuse-mental abuse, thanks to Calladia's ex and her mother, telling her that she's not good enough, she needs to tone herself down, and things like that. It did urk my nerves when her mother brought up all of the things that were wrong with Calladia and not love who she is as a person, and I'm glad that in the end, Calladia got her lick back and isn't gonna be around her mother ever again.

Astaroth of the Nine changed my perception of him throughout the book.

He shocked me so many times--from learning that he was a half-demon, his mother is Lilith...who writes War of the Roses tentacle AO3 Fanfiction--something I wasn't really for or to learn about--but I found that I liked that about her--and that he needed to find a life witch to help him get his memories back. So teaming up with the witch that hated him so much, Calladia, he goes on a road trip to find the witch that can restore his memories, and also find a way to stop a demon named Moloch, who is currently hellbent on killing him.

Throughout the road trip, from fighting werewolves to falling in love and sleeping in a tent, Astaroth had slowly shocked me and Calladia to the point that they fell in love. The ending was really fun, and for secrets to come out when Astaroth got his memories back and realised that he didn't want to go back to the Demon Council, to represent the demon hybrids and be their speaker in the council. Instead, he wants to be with his warrior queen, whom he had fallen in love with.

...Though there were some things I really didn't need to know about, like him and Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia...didn't need to know that part....really didn't....

But I really do love this book series so much and I cannot wait to read the next one.

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Book Review: The Witching Moon Manor (The Spellbound Sisters #2) by Stacy Sivinski

The Witching Moon Manor by Stacy Sivinski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This month it seems like my Libby holds have gas after gas after gas-and reading The Witching Moon Manor made me really happy-just like the first book, it is a happy, warm hug while you sit and enjoy a cup of tea.

The Quigley sisters are reunited again after having their birthday visions and came home, each sister having problems-Anne is the Diviner of Chicago, but even she can't figure out why Mr. Crowley hasn't done his final Task. Violet had an accident at the circus with her husband, Emil, and decided to come home, and Beatrix...well, Beatrix can't write herself a new novel, and she's in a writer's block. So the three sisters come back together to figure things out like they always do, and just like magic, things start to unravel themselves and are put back to rights in their own ways.

Beatrix is having a problem writing her new book. She sits in front of her notebook, but no words have come to her. So she gets up and helps her sister, Anne, only to find herself in a bookstore where she becomes the sole owner thanks to Violet, and she opens a book and starts to read it, thinking that once she gets to the end, she'll see the words The End.

Instead, the words are scratched out, and new words are written...words I have forgotten, but I think they said "There are new endings' or something like that?

Once Beatrix reads those words and is also around Jennings and is slowly falling for him, it turns out that the dusty bookshelf is an enchanted bookstore, and then soon Beatrix is writing again.

Anne is trying to figure out how to keep Mr. Crowley and Philip together in the afterlife once she figures out what Final Task Mr. Crowley has been ignoring/didn't do. She meets his nephew, Vincent, and the two work together to figure out who the ring belongs to. They do butt heads during the whole thing, but then when they do come together, that's when she finds out that thanks to the ring and her new powers, she can walk through the past, and thanks to Vincent's help, she figures out who the ring belongs to, and even though it does belong to Vincent Crowley, it went from Mr. Crowley, Anne, May, Philip's sister, and then Vincent.

Violet was having problems with what had happened at the circus, and she threw herself into helping her sisters with their problems, ignoring her own. When she finally has a chance to sit down and think about what happened at the circus and to poor Emil, she talks to her sisters and drinks some tea, then goes to bed and has a dream that changes everything. Then, when they were together at the end, they all looked at the tea leaves....

...and finds out that someone is pregnant and is going to have a baby by the sign of the birds or something in the tea leaves.

This is my favorite series of all time and I need everyone reading this cozy series.

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Book Review: High Tea and Misdemeanor by Laura Childs

High Tea and Misdemeanors by Laura Childs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First time reading anything from Laura Childs, and I don't think it'll be my last time doing so. High Tea and Misdemeanors takes place during a wedding in Charleston, but then a murder happens, and Theo and her friend and tea sommelier (I learned that's a thing now....) Drayton Conneley tries to figure out who killed the bridesmaid and why they are trying to scare the groom.

As Theo and Drayton look into everything, from the guy Jaime worked for once, and told him that what he was doing wasn't going to work, and he lost everything, to a tech startup guy that did the website for the graveyard stroll that Theo's teashop, the Indigo Tea Shop, is hosting in a very famous graveyard. But when this one woman kept coming into the shop, saying that she wanted to open her own coffee shop with her own flavors of coffee, it never clicked until the end, when she led Theo and Drayton to an abandoned warehouse, where she explained everything and why she did what she did to the shed.

For a moment throughout the whole entire thing, I thought it was the bride's ex-fiancé that did it, but when it was revealed to be the coffee shop operator, I was both shocked...and annoyed. I really didn't want it to be her, but good lord, she made it so hard for me to see that it was her the whole time. I was hoping that it was someone else, but when Theo's boyfriend came through at the end, after telling her multiple times not to get involved, she did anyway.

Throughout the book, everyone kept asking her if she was going to get involved and solve the mystery. Even though Theo said no, she got involved anyway, and that's when she solved the case, while also going through the police via her boyfriend :) All in all, it was a really good book, and I cannot wait to read more from this author.

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Book Review: A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley

A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I saw someone on The Nest on OwlCrate read this book and decided to put this on hold...and I'm so glad that I did. This book was so good, so funny, and I wanna read the rest of the series, because how can something like this-a witch and demon-actually work? I thought it couldn't be done or that I had to do it, but when I first read this book and saw how funny it was, I loved every bit of it.

Mariel accidentally summons Ozroth the Ruthless...because she was trying to summon a bag of flour. Mariel tries so hard to get rid of Ozroth, only for him to be her fake boyfriend when her mother comes by to see how her summoning is doing. Since Ozroth is a soul bargainer demon, he tries so hard to get Mariel to sell her soul on some simple things, but she refuses at every turn.

Ozroth is having problems himself. Ozroth made a deal gone wrong, and now he has a soul inside him that is making him do human things, like sleep for eight hours, eat, and actually drink tea. But the more he's around Mariel and sees how good she is, and how her magic just shines, and how her family pretty much treats her like shit, Ozroth decides to help her with her magic and for her to understand it...only to fall in love with her...hard.

When his mentor, Astaroth, calls him, trying to get him to make Mariel take the deal, Orzoth tries...but instead, at the end, fails, and Mariel makes a deal with Astaroth instead without knowing it, losing her soul in the process....and made it go directly to Ozroth instead. As soon as Ozroth got the spell, that's when it clicked for him, and he returned her soul back, and then everything is well...

Or it?

Thanks to Mariel's bestie, she kicked Astaroth's ass back to the demon world....or did she?

Now I need to read book two to know what happened to him and how he'll survive.

This book was right up my alley, and I enjoyed every bit of it. It made me laugh, and I gasped at some parts. I now want to reread this series every single spooky season because of how good it is.

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Book Review: Murder by Chessecake: A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery by Rachel Ekstrom Courage

Murder by Cheesecake by Rachel Ekstrom Courage
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Murder during a St. Olaf Wedding that Rose is hosting? Perfection.

I flew through this book the moment it arrived on my Libby. It was really funny, had that old Golden Girls charm that we all know and love, and I crackled greatly at the many St. Olaf stories that Rose has told from the show, from Mean Old Lady Hickenlooper to the Headless Boy to everything in between. I thought-no, I feared. Greatly. That I wouldn't like this book. A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery? Nah, I wouldn't like it.

But the more I read it, the more I found that I really enjoyed myself. I wanted to read more of the Girls going throughgh everything they could to figure out why poor Dorothy's date had fallen dead on one of Rose's perfect cheesecakes. I felt like I was right there with them when they discovered it, and then going through the whole mystery of who killed the guy and what led to his death. From going to Wolfie's, dealing with Rose's family from St. Olaf that came to Miami for the wedding, to the funny ending, this was a book I really fun time and I really need everyone to read it.

In fact, I think it was this book that made me do my 30th rewatch of the Golden Girls because it was that funny, made me worry about the girls as they figure out who killed Dorothy's date, and also who put him in the freezer, face down onto Rose's cheesecakes.

I wanted to eat a cheesecake after reading this book. Alas...I didn't get a chance to. But one day I will.

Loved, loved, loved this book so much.

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Book Review: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn

Hungerstone by Kat Dunn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have never read Carmilla, but while I was reading this book, I now have an itch it read it. You don't need to read Carmilla to read this book, but oh boy, this book was sooo good and had me cheering for the end...and also something really bad to happen to Henry because I really hated him so, so much.

Throughout the novel, you are in Lenore's head and see what she goes through with her husband, Henry, and her so-called best friend Cora as she tries to get the Nethershaw Manor fixed up for a hunt that was going to happen in a couple of months. While going to Nethershaw Manor, they run into a broken carriage that belongs to a woman named Carmilla, and that's when things start to become as strange as they can be.

Men are dying, and women are starting to feel hunger for something. One day in the woods, they came across a girl who ate a whole-ass chicken and said that she was "just so hungry". Another time Lenore was out, they came across a woman in a shop, where the man was leaning over the table and moaning, his arm bleeding as the woman was cooking some pork, and said the same thing the girl said-she was "just so hungry".

But the worst thing that happened was the death of one of Henry's workers at Ajax Works--she, along with other Iron Magistrates, witnessed it, and when she thought Henry would do the right thing and give the family some compensation...it didn't happen. Instead, he didn't do it, telling Lenore to post it in the mail. But Lenore wanted to deliver it herself, and it ended up pretty bad.

My favorite parts throughout the book were the relationship Lenore had with Carmilla. It was the most beautiful, sapphic love, because Carmilla saw how Henry was treating her, and she wanted Lenore to stand up for herself, and to also fight and know what was really going on in her house. She even asked the question over breakfast or dinner, Do you think those two are fucking? When it came to Henry and Cora.

At first, Lenore didn't believe her one bit. Her Henry, cheating on her with her friend? Nonsense. She didn't believe it until she and Cora were out on a picnic and she saw the diamond necklace she thought Henry was going to give to her. Fuelled by anger, Lenore yelled and screamed at Cora before Cora tipped over and fell to her death. All of a sudden, she started to come up with a really good excuse as to what happened to Cora--after all, her dear husband wanted to throw her into an asylum for no good reason, even when she started nearly eating everything in the room.

But when she found out that she was slowly being poisoned by arsenic from these pasilies pills, oohhh boy, that also tipped Lenore off--to the point that she tore her husband's neck out with her teeth like a vampire. She even sent off evidence to the police, so if something happens to her or if she dies, the police can have the evidence.

The whole hunting secret was so bad--made me think of another hunting event that went wrong--and even though I really hated Henry SO MUCH because of this secret and all of his manipulations and things like that that when he got what he deserved, I was so happy. Because the ending went so well, Lenore and Carmilla left, even the question at the end was so good--

"You must be so terribly hungry, Lenore." (I'm paraphrasing it)

But that was such a really good ending to a really good book, and now I need to read more from Kat Dunn.

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Book Review: An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My second Margaret Rogerson book that I've read, and it was soo good.

Isobel is a painter, and most of her patrons are Fae, and they come to get their paintings done. One day, the Autumn Prince Rook comes and asks for a painting, and she accidentally paints him to have human sorrow in his eyes, the deadliest thing she could've done. Then Rook comes back to spirit her away to the Autumn Court, to stand on trial for what she did. But once she was spirited back to the Fae realm, that's when she went on an adventure.

From the Wild Hunt to the Spring Court, and even attempting to fight the Alder King, Isobel and Rook find adventure, games, and romance. Isobel tries very hard to keep her human self intact, even keeping an iron ring in her pocket in case of emergencies. But the more she is around the fae and sees how they live in the respective courts, and also encounters the Wild Hunt and helps Rook defeat the Alder King, and also becomes royalty at the end.

I had a great deal of fun reading this book. It had twists and turns, and I wasn't expecting the adventure that I was going to go on with Rook and Isobel. I wish this were a series, because it was so, so good. I really enjoyed myself reading her stories, and I need to read more of Margaret Rogerson so, so much.

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Book Review: Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic #1)

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I feel like everyone and their mama has read this book or any book by Alice Hoffman, but as soon as I picked this book up-randomly after I got done with another book-I cracked it open and I fell into this dark world filled with magic, secrets, history, and family. Alice Hoffman has just become one of my new favorite authors that I'm sleeping on, and reading this book in the fall seems perfect. It makes me want to actually make my own tea and make black soap and just have a cozy, magical life and not have any worries. That's how this book makes me feel.

My favorite character from this book has to be Maria. When Hannah raised her and taught her the Nameless Arts, she was a headstrong young lady and also very sweet and very kind. She knew how to do many things, and when Hannah was killed, she ran off so she wouldn't be found. She went to work on a Dutch farm, where she met the man who would make her do the family curse. She fell in love hard with John Hawthrone, and when she woke up one day and he was gone, she followed him, pregnant and only had her art, to Massachusetts, where she first had the baby before she left and then met a man named Samuel Dias, who had the breakback fever.

I don't think that at the time Maria was running away after Hannah's death, she'd come across her own mother, Rebecca, who was a witch as well, but she practices the Arts, but I think a bit darker. Maria did live with her mother for a bit and even learned of a potion called the Tenth Potion, which Maria wrote down, but she never used it. I would like to think that she kept that potion handy for an emergency, but she didn't use it because it reminded her too much of her mother and how her mother used it to get a man she loved, and that she had bespelled him to love her.

Back on the boat, Maria helped Samuel break his fever, but he still had aches and pains sometimes when it came back. Maria's daughter, Faith (we'll get back to her,) calls him either Gogo or Goat, and Samuel just kept telling both of them tales. He even warns Maria against going to Massachusetts to find the man she's in love with, John Hawthorne, because it is very dangerous.

And he was absolutely right.

This was Salem during the Witch Trials, and Maria and Faith, thanks to John, were hidden. But that didn't stop John from coming to see Maria at night and smashing her before going back to his wife, and Maria had to hide herself, but only wearing red boots. Faith kinda did the same, but she had a huge wolf she named Keeper after one night coming across him when she saw some hunters hurt his mother and brother, and forgot about him. Things were going well--women coming to see Maria for the usual remedies that the local apothecary doesn't have --until someone named Martha Chase lied on Maria, just so she could have her daughter Faith.

In fact, Martha did all of that scheming to take Faith away from Maria so she could have a daughter, telling her lies about her mother and making sure that she doesn't practice the art-to the point that she put iron bracelets on poor Faith's wrists, while Maria survives her ordeal, and during her trial and thanks to Samuel coming back from the sea, Maria put a curse on her family so she won't be hurt. When she didn't die and the rope snapped, Maria ran off to try and find her daughter, only to find her gone.

But Faith, being Faith, the smartest girl in the world, was coming up with a plan to escape Martha so she could finally live her life and get her revenge.

Faith has been playing the good daughter for Martha, but has been secretly buying books to read and even finding a dark magic spellbook from a book stall one day, even after she was warned about it. When she did escape from Martha, she did had help from the peddler named Finny, who was the hero of the escape, which was a really good thing. I was worried that Faith wasn't going to escape, and when she did after Martha fell hard on a bridge, that's when she felt truly free. She even asked Finny to take the bracelets off, and she felt more like herself again--to the point that when she got to Manhattan of NYC, she went straight to her mother and also started to get her revenge on her own father.

How?

She pretended to be a new maid in his home, and waited till the right time to do it. When she served him Tell the Truth Tea and some pie with a dead dove in it, she did feel like she got her revenge on her father after what he did to her and Maria, but once she came to her senses, that's when she (or I think Maria did) put the book in the Owens library so no one can find it and use its dark magic.

I really enjoyed this book so much, it has to be one of my favorite books. Now on to the next book!

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Book Review: Brewed with Love by Shelly Page

Brewed with Love by Shelly Page
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How can I describe this book....

If you take the cozy mystery elements of a cozy mystery...

Throw in witches and werewolves...

A sapphic romance between said witch and werewolf...

A potion goes wrong, and small town vibes...

And you got this book.

Honestly, this book was really cute. It was cozy, had a mystery in it, and I enjoyed reading this book. It had a young witch who was trying to come up with a heartbreak potion to get rid of the heartbreak she felt for her friend Ximena. One day, Sage (the witch) ran out of the store, and there was a break-in at the store, thanks to Ximena calling her and telling her about it. Running back to the store, she found that her heartbreak potion was gone, and now she needs to know who broke into the store and why.

Throughout the book, we see Sage and Ximena try to solve the case in a couple of days, along with them trying to talk about why Ximena left and also their feelings for each other. When Sage finds out that Ximena is a werewolf and cannot control it because of the magic that has been leeched because of Bottled Wonders, a huge superstore like Walmart, but they sell a whole bunch of generic potions, and the owner, John Winters, is trying to run out every single small business in town.

Not if Sage has anything to deal with it.

Along with a human whose memory is lost, Sage and Ximena race to find out who stole the horrible potion and why. When they find out it was an athlete from school who was giving the potions to John Winters, Sage comes up with an idea to stop him, and it works. John is arrested, Sage came up with a new potion that helped revive the memories of the girl, and Ximena asks her to be her girlfriend. Everything is going well, and the shop is saved.

Even though all of this happened in the springtime, I feel like you can read this in the falltime and it can still be cozy and adorable at the same time. I enjoyed myself and I hope she comes out with more books or make this into a series, because I would read that.

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Book Review: Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig (The Shepard King's Duology #2)

Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Two Twisted Crowns...just like One Dark Window, Two Twisted Crowns had brought me to my knees. The Nightmare now inhabiting Elspeth's body, Elm, and Ione are looking for Ione's Maiden card, and both The Nightmare/Elspeth and Ravyn are looking for the last card in the Provience deck, the Twin Alders card. Once again, Rachel Gillig knocked this book out of the park for me, because we go back to a time when The Nightmare, or the Shepherd King, or Taxus, as he was called in the past, created the cards and how one person took it all away-a Rowan named Brutus, I believe-and then everything went to hell, and now The Nightmare and Ravyn are trying to find the Twin Alders to reunite the deck and then destroy it.

That arc hurt my soul in ways I never thought it could hurt me, but the more I read it, the more I was really getting into the story and how that arc was going to end-will Elspeth get back to her own body? Will The Nightmare forever stay in Elspeth's body, and will Elspeth be lost to Ravyn and everyone and never return? Those were the questions in my mind as I kept reading, and when they finally got the card, I felt like everything was going to be alright.

The second arc was the Elm and Ione story. All Elm wants to do is help Ione find the Maiden card that Hauth, when he controlled her with the Scythe card, told her to hide it. Elm tried everything he could to find the card, along with being the King's Heir, while the King was totally doing the Robert Baratheon and drinking all the time, and not making any sense when he was drunk. When Hauth came back to life thanks to the Maiden card, it was almost like a fight to the death when Elm and Ione tried to fight Hauth, and even Ione showed Elm the cruelty she dealt with her when she was with Hauth.

When the Nightmare and Ravyn came back from getting the Twin Alders, a fight ensued, and all hope was lost when Hauth had all the cards. But Elm pulled an uno-reverse card and spilled Hauth's blood all over the cards, and everything was clearer than ever-The Nightmare and Elspeth had one final moment before he disappeared, Ravyn knew his real name (Taxus, named after The Shepherd King and also his father was Bennett), and Elm and Ione got married. Some new cards were created, and the wedding between Elm and Ione was very beautiful. I really enjoyed this duology, and I'm so glad that I read it, and I now need to read the new things Rachel Gillig is writing, because she's my new favorite author of all time.

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Book Review: One Dark Window (The Shepard King Duology #1) by Rachel Gillig

One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So....apparently I've been missing out on Rachel Gillig, because OH MY GOOD LORD this book??? This book right here?? PERFECTION. I wasn't expecting me to love this book, to be fair. Every time I'd see this book online, I would legit ask, 'Does the monster in this girl's head like Sukuna in Itadori's head?' and I was so curious that I'd hold on to this series until the fall, where I picked it up and read it myself.

And I am so glad that I did.

Elspeth Spindle is a girl who has a being called the Nightmare in her head (that sadly isn't like Sukuna, but then the more I read it, his voice turned out to be like Naraku, but his actions are like Sukuna's), and one night while walking, she almost gets attacked by highwaymen. It turns out that the highwaymen are from the Rowan royal family, who are seeking the cards to rid themselves of the mist that has shrouded the Kingdom of Bluster. Elspeth agrees when her cousin Ione is announced to the Crown Prince Hauth (whom I hate, but let's move on before I snap and dump a BUNCH of hate on this man) and has received The Maiden card.

Elspeth, Ravyn, Elm, and Jespyr go out one night and attempt to rob someone of their card, unaware that Hauth or Elspeth's father is also present, and things don't go as planned. Back at the castle, the sickly brother, Emory, touches Elspeth, and I feel like he kinda saw The Nightmare in Elspeth, and started talking about The Book of the Oak, I believe, and then things started...going dark quite fast.

There was a Chalice card that tries to get people to tell the truth, and Prince Hauth tries to use it on Elspeth, but since she can see it and can't use it (along with Ravyn) that's when Ravyn starts to lie about certain events, and then after that, Ravyn and Elspeth told each other their feelings, and then they hunched. But one day, when Ravyn was gone from the castle, Hauth showed up and put his hands on Elspeth, and then The Nightmare took over and broke Hauth like a twig, and that's where the story ends-with The Nightmare/Elspeth in the dungeons, Ione very beautiful, and Hauth darn near on his deathbed.

I really enjoyed this book, like I said, and Rachel Gillig became one of my new auto-buy authors. I loved her writing, I loved how she brought the magic in the cards to life, and I also really like how she built the relationship between the characters to bring them to life. I feel like I was at home in the Kingdom of Blunder, and I am very excited to read the second book in the series.

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Book Review: Queen of Deception (Empire of Shattered Crowns #1) by May Freighter

Queen of Deception by May Freighter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book reminded me of the many Korean reincarnation manhwas I've read, about a girl who's reincarnated into a princess and starts to change everything, and I loved every single bit of it.

Emilia was dead, and then one day she woke up in a fantasy novel like the one in her favorite fantasy novel, The Cruel Empire, and the person she inhabits is the princess who is fated to die. But Emilia changes all of that when she survives the coup and becomes regent of Dante. She then starts to go to work on fixing so many things that needed to be fixed in the country, and also works with the prince, Prince Thessian, and to one day give him the Throne of Dante, and she can live on her own in the countryside with her faithful maid and lady in waiting, Ambrose.

But things don't go her way the moment she learns that things aren't going the way they should in Dante.

One, there were political enemies she wanted to eliminate, one by one. The way she did this was so well done and very cunningly, I must say. Two, she tried very hard not to fall in love with Prince Thessian, and she succeeded, even though she couldn't help but look at him from time to time, which is not that much. Thirdly, she saves a group of children from people who don't want her to take the throne, and she willingly walks towards them before they are killed.

Emilia became one of my favorite characters of all time now, and I want to read more of this series. Even though Prince Thessian wasn't my favorite, the ending concerned me a bit, and I wanted to know if he was going to survive or not. The way he ran after the Grey Wolf with one of the lord's children, and I got very concerned about him. All in all, I really liked this book and I will definitely read more in this series, to see how it continues.

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Book Review: A Kingdom of Stars and Shadows by Holly Renee (Stars & Shadows #1)

A Kingdom of Stars and Shadows by Holly Renee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I legit read this book out of spite, and even though it was fine, for me it fell...flat. As hell.

Adara was just...annoying and always was the strong girl who wanted to be free of being Starblessed like she had cooties and wanted to live a normal life. Adara was betrothed to the crown prince, Garvil, but then she meets Evran one night...and she's lusting after him, not giving Garvil the time of day. At all. Which, okay, cool, its forbidden and all, but to sneak around and smash the brother while trying to find a way out ofthe castle.

The spicy scenes were eh okay, the way she left the castle when the vampyres attacked were meh, and then that ending...didn't surprise me one bit. I was waiting on something else to come along and shock me, but it didn't. This book just fell so flat for me that I wished for it to be over. When it was, it was. It was an okay book but sadly just not for me at all.

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Book Review: A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft

A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm guessing that 2025 is the year I'm finding authors on my shelf that I haven't read before, because finding A Fragile Enchantment and reading it now made me fall in love with Allison Saft's writing. The characters were written so well, and the political intrigue was also well-written. Additionally, I actually rooted for Niamh and Kit to get together. I kept side-eyeing Kit's brother, Jack, when he kept coming up with fifty million excuses.

It has balls and magic and sewing and stuff. Still, I have realized that it also has some chronic illness representation, and I really liked how Allison used magic and the chronic illness interestingly, and how Niamh's hair started to change to white each time she exhausted herself or used her magic. I also really love the found family with Niamh, Kit, and Sinclair, and how they did almost everything together. Even though I really didn't like Kit in the first place, he grew on me, and I liked that.

The political intrigue nearly had me snap my head twice, because it was between the Avalinds and the Machlish people, and I wanted to know more about that and how they were settled, and did the Avalinds and the Machlish people are living in peace. I feel like that was kind of left off somewhere, and I wanted to know what happened to them and hoped they are living in peace, and that Jack is a really good king.

At least he was very good with his wife, Sofia, the wife he kept neglecting throughout the book, and she wanted to be seen, but she didn't fight hard enough to do so, in my opinion. I still liked Sofia and now I wanted a book with Sofia in a book one day. But all and all, I really enjoyed myself and I would honestly read this book again.

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Book Review: Runaway Love (Cherry Tree Harbor #1) by Melanie Harlow

Runaway Love by Melanie Harlow


Once again, Melanie Harlow knocked it out of the park with this one, and I loved it, as I should.

This one is about a single dad who falls for a runaway bride and ends up becoming a nanny, so I had to let her hold my hand as I read this, and honestly, I loved every single bit of it. I don't read much romance about single dads, but maybe it's time to read some, because I love the way Melanie Harlow writes her men and how they fall in love, and how the relationship takes time to grow, finally culminating in love. Also, there's some groveling at the end, which I LOVED very much.

This book is about a single dad named Austin Buckley who needs a nanny for his twins, Adalaide and Owen, for the summer. What he didn't expect to appear in his doorway was a runaway bride! Immediately, Austin turns her down because she doesn't have everything he needed to take care of his kids for the summer, but when she started to prove herself-teaching the kids how to do some simple yoga, actually learning how to cook, and things like that-that's when he hires her.

But he shouldn't kiss is hire. Or fall in love with her. Or punch her dickhead of a fiancé in the face.

But he did, and now Austin doesn't know what to do with himself.

Veronica "Roni" Sutton had gotten a sext from her fiancé, Neil Vanderhoff, which should've been sent to whom it was meant to be sent to, but when she confronted him about it, he denied it. When it came to saying their vows, Roni said nah, Rockette-kicked him in the face, and ran away to Moe' Diner, where she saw the help-wanted ad for the nanny job. She goes in her wedding dress and got the job, and for the summer, everything is perfect.

Until she starts to fall in love with Austin, and their chemistry is on fire. But then she wants to leave, to go back to NYC so she can go back into dancing, but instead she stayed in Cherry Tree Harbor, opened a dance school, and she moved in with her Austin, and everything was perfect. The ending made me cry, and now I want an Austin x Roni extra scene with them married, raising Owen and Adalaid,e and their own kids.

I really do highly reconmend this book (and Melanie Harlow) so, so much.



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Book Review: The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker

The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My god, this was beautiful.

The Scarlet Alchemist was such a beautiful book, with necromancy, alchemy, a bit of romance, and also the FMC, Zilan, beating the odds and becoming the Scarlet Alchemist, only for it to go to hell at the end, which was so much fun. It weirdly felt like an anime, until I saw that the author got inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist, and I could see it.

The way alchemy is used in this world is very interesting, along with the necromancy that Zilan uses to bring back people. When she does reveal that she brought her cousins back from the dead when they were young, I thought it was weird for a moment. I thought they were as normal as you and me, but when she revealed their skin tags that were on their necks....I was honestly shocked. That was one of the most perfect reveals that I wasn't expecting one bit.

The second reveal in the book was that Zilan herself had a soul tag. The Crown Prince, Li Hong, found it during their night together, and she freaked out about it. When she went to the Moon Alchemist to ask her about it, it was revealed that Zilan died when she was young, was run over by Emperess Wu Zeitan's horse carriage (oh yeah...I forgot to say that Emperess Wu was in this book...oops). She was shocked about it, but not shocked enough when she was kidnapped and taken to a room where the Moon and Paper Alchemists wanted to kill the Empress.

See, Empress Wu needed Alchemists to create gold so she could eat it as if it were chicken nuggies and she could live forever. But the Alchemists didn't want to be making gold anymore, so they had a plan, only for it to turn around and get everyone killed, because the Empress was a couple of steps ahead of them and poured their blood on the bandages that were supposed to come from her.

The plan was to feed Empress Wu's blood to the monsters that were in the dungeons. But sadly...that didn't work.

The Empress played UNO Reverse, and they fed their blood to the pearl monsters, and they attacked them.

It was a bloodbath, and the ending made me happy, but I was also a bit sad that Zilan didn't bring Li Hong back. But it was funny that she brought her cousin Yufei back in the Empress's body and let her rule. I cannot wait to read the next book in this series, it was SOO GOOD.

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Book Review: Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop (Beacon Bakeshop #1) by Darci Hannah

Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop by Darci Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is how you do a cozy murder mystery!!

Lindsey Bakewell left NYC after she caught her ex-fiancee with another woman, and she decides to follow her dream: she wants to open a bakery and sell a whole bunch of baked goodies. When she brought a lighthouse and opened up a bakery. While she was doing that, a woman named Fiona started making a rukus all over the place, threatening to shut her bakery down before she could even sell one delicious doughnut. But thanks to her real-estate agent, Betty, along with her staff and a very hot writer next-door neighbor, the Beacon Bakeshop is ready to open!

With her bestie Kennedy Kapoor, the shop was doing well...until Lindsey's ex, Jeffery, and his girlfriend Mia Long came in and started to run everything...until Mia started to choke and had to go to the hospital, thus making the Beacon Bakeshop a crime scene, because, well...Mia died.

Which was very odd, because all Mia did was pretend that the baked goods were so bad to the point that she started to pretend to choke on them.

Lindsay was devastated that her Bakeshop had to close, but at the same time, she wondered why the heck Mia and lazy-arse Jeffery Plank would come to Beacon to destroy the opening of her shop? She wondered and puzzled, to the point that she decided to investigate. From cyanide poisonings to finding out that someone pretended to be Lindsay to try and kill Betty, something wasn't adding up. Also, there was a certain ghost named Captain Willy Riggs trying to help her too....

When it turns out to be her baker, Dylan, who was smuggling drugs from her bakery to the cartels, that's when things got nearly ugly, when Lindsay and Dylan (whom I loved so much to the end) started to fight after Lindsay told her New Fowland, Wellington, to go get Rory Campbell (she also suspected him after he told her of his knowledge about cyanide, but she forgave him). Once the scuffle was over and Rory and the cops placed her under arrest, everything was just fine.

Lindsay had another Opening 2.0; she and Rory, and Kennedy are on good terms, and Lindsay's parents are helping around at the Bakeshop now. Everything is perfect, and Betty and everyone else are very happy that the bakeshop is open again.

This book was so good that I would read the next book in the series. I loved how Lindsay tried to solve the murder, even looking into the murder of Captain Willy Riggs. Wellington was such a good dog, and I hope there is a romance blooming between Lindsay and Rory. I also hope that we see more of Kennedy, because she is the bestest bestie I've ever seen in a book. Love, love, loved this book so much.

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Book Review: Queen of Roses (Blood of a Fae #1) by Briar Boleyn

Queen of Roses by Briar Boleyn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book took me a minute, and even though it was slow, it was also pretty fun to read. I find that I do like Arthurian retellings, and the retelling of Morgan Pendragon sounds like a fun, hinged time. But as I read it, it felt like I was reading an actual fantasy rather than a romantasy. Also, I should've looked at the triggers, but I kept reading, and yes, it was slow-very slow, to the point that I wanted to find something else to read. But I pushed through it, and even though it was okay, I still enjoyed myself. I don't know if I am gonna pick the second book up (spoiler alert: I will), but either way, I still enjoyed this book.

What I mean by this book being a fantasy with a romance subplot is, I felt like it was an epic fantasy novel with a romance subplot with Morgan and Vesper and Morgan and Draven. I thought that Morgan would get with Draven after traveling together and him saving her from drinking that horrible tea with the iron in it, but the more they are together, the more I feel like they were going to get together.

The reason they were put together was because of Arthur, who wanted Morgan to get Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Even though Morgan wanted to be with her brother Kaye, she decided to go ahead and go with Draven and a man named Whitethorn, who was very terrible and kept making her that godforsaken "medicine" that looked like it was suppressing her fae heritage and almost killed her because Arthur told him to. She also left because of a horrible, disgusting man named Florian, who assaulted her and carved his name into her skin in the most disgusting way possible, and it was a journey to find the sword and bring it to Arthur.

...or so she thought.

Turns out, Pendrath went straight to hell the moment she left. People are dying or starving, Arthur went to war with some kingdom I can't remember, and also Vesper, the half-fae bard, pretty much works for Arthur and helped her get the sword, but then stabbed her and wanted to kill poor Draven after those dead children rose up and tried to kill them. Those dead kids did drag her friend Lancelet away, but we don't know if she's dead or not.

But at the end, which I find that I like, that it turns out...

...ol' Draven is a siabra. I'm guess they're cats?

Cat people?

Cat demons?

Are they like InuYasha?

Will I ever know that answer?

When I read book two I will. Which will be soon. So yes, I did have a good time, and I think I am gonna go ahead and read book two, to see if it gets better.

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Book Review: A Monsoon Rising (The Hurricane Wars #2) by Thea Guanzon

A Monsoon Rising by Thea Guanzon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh. My. God.

Oh my good giggty good, this book was SO GOOD that the ending nearly made me fall out of my chair (not really, BUT STILL).

Talasyn and Alaric are my favorite characters/couple so far this year, and I enjoyed how they dealt with the marriage while also dealing with the dangers of the Voidfell, and how they dealt with the politics of their countries. I did cackle out loud when Elgabi showed up at the library one time, looking like he was going to straight-up cook our boy Alaric, but somehow kept his calm and talked to him with very sweet whiskey, and the two had an understanding.

The action in this book, though it was less of it than in the first book, was pretty good, but the building of the romance to the spice (even though I don't care about spice in books like this, I really care about how the romance is built between the characters and are they gonna fit) was so well done. I liked how they fit, how they worked together, and how jealous Alaric got at the ball.

BUT THAT ENDING?!

THAT. ENDING.

I need book three in my hands NOW. Because how dare you end it like that, and now I'm thinking that that certain character is a spy for the Night Empire, or is the Regent taking over this girl?! I need more, and I wanna know how Talasyn and Alaric can get out of this one and save the world yet again.

My favorite part of all of this is the dragon-riding part and putting an ancient dragon back to sleep after waking up after all this time. I almost cried reading this part, mostly because I was worried about Talasyn and Alaric and hoped that they didn't fall. I'm glad they didn't and Talasyn put Bakrun back to sleep, but that was the most fun I've read in a book in a long time.

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Book Review: The Hurricane Wars (The Hurricane Wars #1) by Thea Guanzon

The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked this book up because my other book was about to put me in a reading slump...and I am so glad that I picked this book up, because OH MY GOOD GOD THIS IS MY 2ND FAVORITE BOOK OF THE YEAR. The world-building had me kicking my feet and giggling, and the political intrigue and the way the magic system is...OMG. I loved this book so much that I already have book two ready for me to go ahead and dive into, because this book was so good and the writing was fantastic.

In the beginning, there was a girl named Talasyn who was just there for her friend's wedding, and the next thing you know, they were attacked by the Night Empire, and on a snowy mountain, that's when she meets the Night Emperor's son, Alaric Ossiant, and the two clash. Soon, the two of their magics-light and dark-came together to form a shield for a moment before it dissipated.

Confused more than ever, Talasyn and Alaric left to go to their respective homes, and the Hurricane Wars sadly ended when the Night Empire won, but then Talasyn talked to the Amirante and they told her to go this place in the Nenavar Dominion to consult and train with the Lightwaver temple. But who would have thunk that Talasyn is the daughter of the Dominion Prince (who I immediately casted as Oded Fehr in my head). As soon as she is welcomed back after being caught by the Dominion, that's when everything goes completely political, WHICH I LOVE.

With Talasyn meeting her grandmother and then being forced in an arrainged political marriage to the new Night Emperor, who is Alaric, everything seems hinged and fine...until secrets start to come out of the woodwoork, and oh no I fell for the evil Night Emperor and I have to remember that I hate him, but gosh darn it, we're about to get married now and all that good stuff...that's what's going on in Talasyn's mind each time they have negotionatons and then they get married.

Not that it bothered me a bit, but kept feeling like Talasyn kept retaliating about her marriage and had to remind herself that she didn't wanna marry him in the first place, but she does like it when they spar and work to make a shield and all that good stuff, which is a good thing. Another good thing is that while they were getting married, she had to remind herself that it was fake and that she didn't love him, but that night she did many lovely things to him and told him to get off of her.

I really did enjoy this book, and I cannot wait to jump into book two to find out what happens next in the series, because I'm really enjoying this, and I am in love with Alaric Ossiant. Just sayin'.

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Book Review: The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1) by Tessa Dare

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Perfection.

That is the only word I can come up with after reading this book-Perfection. Not only was it cute, fun, and really funny, it also had its moments of seriousness, and how the Duke of Ashbury was ashamed and terrified of the fact that people would look at him because of the scars that he got when he was in Waterloo fighting Napoleon. I honestly didn't give a flying fig about Ashbury's scars-like Emma's friends, they really didn't care one bit about them. Emma didn't neither-all she saw was a man that she loved and even though it was a marriage of convenience, to me, it was done right-it a good way.

Emma is a seamstress and the daughter of a vicar who one day stumbles into Ash's home to get money for her rent. Ash took one good look at her, and offered her hand in marriage, since his ex-fiancee didn't want to marry him. But Ash has some rules for her:

1. They will be husband and wife by night only.
2. No lights and no kissing.
3. No questions about his horrible scars.
4. Last, and most importantly-once she's pregnant with his heir, they need never to share a bed again.

....hold on, let me laugh for a minute. Okay, I'm done laughing. Because even though I understand the rules, I really think these rules are very stupid and why in the nine hells would you make that rule, my dude? But the more I read and the more you see Emma try to abide by those rules, she's throwing them out the window and tries to help him come ouf of his shell, even though in the papers he became The Monster of Mayfair, which was pretty funny and the way he got the moniker was by walking around and taking care of bad people, as if he was Bruce Wayne. He even scared Emma's vicar father into apologizing to Emma, which was very sweet to do.

Emma turned out to be my favorite character because she didn't let her husband's problems get in her way of living her life. She made friends, tried to help Ash out by getting him out the house and stuff, and also getting into fights with him, in which they come back to each other. The spice in the book was really good and I am going to read more of this series because this is a really good book and my first book by Tessa Dare.

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Book Review: Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It took me a while to pick this up, and I have to say...I'm glad that I read it, but it was too weird for me. I thought when I saw the word "monster," they're gonna turn into monsters, and the monster hunters are going to hunt them down and kill them. Instead, the "monsters" in the book are people who steal time, and then they time travel, and the monster hunters go after them and put them down so they won't go and take more time from humans. Which is fine, I don't mind that, because it sounds very interesting.

But Joan, the main character, took me out of the book completely. When she first started stealing time from people, she got scared and worried and started acting like she was a problem. When she meets the Oliver family with Nick, and watches Nick kill them and give her a warning to not steal time from humans or he'll put her down, she gets scared and tries to save her family from them, trying to see reason. All throughout the book, she keeps trying to save people, trying to stop them from killing other monsters and coming up with ways to do it. When we have the sensible people, Ruth and Aaron, the monsters who steal time while Joan is half-human, are telling her no.

She constantly keeps telling them no, this is another way, blah, blah, blah. It started to irritate me the more I read it because she wants to save her family from the pain and the hate that her family is going through, but it just doesn't work at all, and she's failing or falling flat on her face each time. Some of her ideas do work, but other than that they don't, and it's nice to see her try, but it reality it really doesn't work.

I did enjoy the time traveling and how they travel through time, and I wanted to know more about that. It sounds like fun. But Joan kept ruining everything, which is annoying and it kind of took me out of the book. I don't think I'll pick up the rest of the books in this series because of how Joan is trying to be a superhero when, in reality, the things she wants to do, she can't do because of what's going on around her. I liked this book, but not enough to keep reading more of the series.

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Book Review: Ace in the Hole (Black Badge #3) by Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle

Ace in the Hole by Rhett C. Bruno
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One: I didn't know that this was the last book of the series. I thought they were going to do another book, and that would be it. But to be the last book and for it to end the way it did? Perfect. I loved every bit of it.

Two: I'm going to miss Crowley and Rosa SO, SO MUCH. These two were so much fun to read about, seeing them go around the West, trying to stop Ace, Heaven and Hell, and also trying to figure out what Rosa is and find someone who can train her with her ever-growing powers. I also liked how she kept trying to stop Crowley from doing the wrong things and wants him to do things her way, even though sometimes it doesn't work at all, which cracks me up sometimes because he gets frustrated and wants to do things his way instead of hers.

Three: The interesting characters that came up here-we got Ace, Chekoketh, Judas Iscariot, and also George Washington, but as a vampire. Dracula does show up at the end, but the one thing I'm stuck on is GEORGE WASHINGTON AS A VAMPIRE. WHO NEEDS VAMPIRIC DENTURES. I honestly crackled the moment I read that, picturing him as a vampire who needs vampiric dentures just so he can drink blood. And he lives in his tower-perfect. Now I can't stop thinking about it each time I look at a picture of the Washington Tower. I think.

But to me, this felt like if Geralt and Yennefer were dropped in the West to find out what Yen is, while also fighting monsters, and this was very fun to read. I didn't care about Ace one bit, even though he got on my nerves. I just enjoyed one last right with Crowley, and the ENDING shocked me. The ENDING. But I did enjoy it nonetheless and I'm sad it's over :(

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Book Review: From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper

From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From Bad to Cursed was a really fun time. I enjoyed the mystery aspect to it, like Isidora and Rowan are detectives looking to find out who did it, and at the same time, fall in love. This book feels like a little witchy cozy mystery but with a bit of spice, and I loved every bit of it.

Isadora Arvamov is the necromantic demon-summoning, animal-loving witch who starts off the book by summoning a demon. Then, during a tryout of who's going to be the May Queen for Beltane, that's when a curse was cast on one of the contestants-Holly Thorn--and that sets off this mystery of who cast the curse and how to stop them. And the only way Isadora can find out why is by teaming up with her archnemesis, Rowan Thorn, the cousin of Holly Thorn.

At first, Issa and Rowan didn't wanna work with each other, and the fact that they used to work at an animal shelter together didn't work, but I thought the way they worked together to find out who cursed Holly was perfect. They went to talk to their suspects, they did research, and then when it turned out that it was one of Issa's family members, especially the great, great, great, great grandmother,r Valentina Arvamov, who really hated Alastair Thorn for some odd reason.

At the same time, Isadora is also the creative director of her family's haunted house, and she came up with a story that sounds just like her and Rowan's story during the mystery, and the two curses, to me, were very interesting. I say that because of the way they were cast and how Issa and Rowan, mostly Issa, when the Dead Skull Hex appeared to try and kill Rowan, tried to stop it. Even went to his cousin's place to get a necklace bound with a curse, and then there's something that Issa has been hiding from her mother, Elena, for years now.

Isadora doesn't want to work for her family business anymore. She wants to be a fashion designer. She has so many ideas that she wants to create, but she doesn't want to leave her family. When she does tell her mother after the fight between her, Rowan, Valentina, and the demon she summoned in the first half of the book (whose name I've clearly forgotten) and the sad part was, Valentina had possessed Natalia (again) and it took Issa to try and save her sister, only to call upon a demon to do it and to curse the said demon back to hell.

I really enjoyed this one, not like the first one because I really enjoyed that one, but I really liked this one so much.

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Book Review: Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson #9)

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh, how I miss this world of Mercy Thompson.

The fights, the writing, the action? Chef's Kiss.

In Fire Touched, Mercy and her mate, werewolf alpha Adam, fight a troll, and they are entangled in fae politics when a fire-touched boy named Aiden, who calmed down the tibicena named Joel, who couldn't control it, but now thanks to Aiden, he can. Once the fight with the troll was over and Mercy declared, with the Walking Stick, that the Colombia Basin pack is going to protect the Tri-Cities from the evil fae and anyone who wants Aiden.

The backlash from it?

Adam gets tired of his pack hating on Mercy and tells them to fuck off in a nice way. Adam and Mercy go with Thomas and Margaret to meet with the Gray Lords to come up with a deal that everyone can exist, and to go to the Underhill to get an artifact to give to the Gray Lords. Oh, and somehow Baba Yaga is in this as well.

Weirdly.

We don't know why.

She was just there.

Okay then....

But it turned out great, because there was a fight in the Underhill between Mercy, Adam, Zee, and Aiden vs the Widow Queen and her people. Even though Mercy didn't shift, she fought and won against the Widow Queen, and also thanks to Aiden, they made a deal with Tilly (the Underhill) so Aiden can come every once in a while to see her and that the door will be closed and no one can come to the Underhill without her permission.

All in all, it was a really good book and I enjoyed myself so much.

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Book Review: Gifted and Talented by Olivie Blake

Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though this book was so weird and odd and also very messy, Gifted and Talented is a pretty good book that I feel like I need to break down this book by separating it by the siblings-Arthur, Meredith, and Eilidh.

Arthur-Arthur is the son of Thayer Wren, husband to Gillian, and lover to both Yves and Philippa, along with being a congressman. Arthur is losing his second race of being a congressman, he's in love with his wife while being with both Yves and Philippa, and he can short-circuit things with electricity. Arthur one day dreams up a little girl he named Riot, and it's all good and all, but there's a little problem.

And the little problem is that he keeps dying and coming back to life.

He doesn't know why he keeps doing that, and the more he keeps doing it, the more he has a fear that he's actually gonna die. When it got to the point that he had to contact Lou, an old friend of his sister's after he dies again and also learns of his father's death, he does spend time with her and tells her what's going on, and then he learns, close to the end, that he was eating one of Yves's candies and that's why he keeps dying over and over again. But at least he told his wife that he loved her, and also learned that something very bad happened to Philippa.

Meredith-Meredith is the owner and CEO of Birdsong, which has an app called Chip, an app that can swear that can make you happy. When she was about to give a talk about her app, she gets a text message from her ex-boyfriend, Jamie, that says I know what you did all Pretty Little Liars L style. Meredith tries not to talk about it, but when she meets up with Jamie again, it turns out that he was going to expose her through an article he wrote, which is about to be published soon.

Meredith tries everything she could to stop Jamie from publishing the article, even knowing that her business partner, Wren, jumped ship, and her boyfriend, Cass...well...she may or may not love him. Throughout Meredith's chapters, and though the pain of losing her father, Meredith wants to get back with Jamie, completely forgetting about her boyfriend, COMPLETELY. Like, girlie, why?? Why do you want to ruin the relationship you have with Cass to get back with your ex, who's trying to take you down? I don't get it. But at least, at the end, Meredith decided to go to jail and finally cleared the air with Lou after all these years and hating her so much.

Eilidh: I feel like Eilidh is a character that is...boring as crap. She used to be a dancer, but she's just living her life, kind of drifting through it. She has a crush on her father's assistant, not even knowing that she was sleeping with her father and is pregnant with his child. Eilidh can also bring the apocalypse, with a bunch of locuses attacking the plane, setting her house on fire, and on top of that, she's finding her voice with a lot of things. She's tired of Arthur and Meredith pretending that she's not in the room, calling each other Sister Death or Brother Annoying or something like that, and she gave a beautiful performance at her father's wake. Is Eilidh my favorite? Not that much, but she reminds me of myself in some ways.

I enjoyed this book. It was messy and had magic and was good. It made he have some ideas about a new story but that's just it.

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Book Review:I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang

I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I Am Not Jessica Chen kinda hit me because when i was in high school (and, well, now) I felt like this for a while, which I felt like it was weird at first, but then the more I think about it, the more I realize that this feels like a diary of some sort, and we're reading the journal entries or stories of a girl who switched bodies with her cousin, and it felt like a Picture of Dorian Gray story, with the cousin, Jenna, living her cousin's Jessica's life, all the while her presence was disappearing the more she was living in Jessica's body.

Jenna Chen is tired of being second best to her perfect cousin, Jessica. She wants to be perfect, just like her, and wants her life and her friends and everything else that Jessica has. One day, while outside with Jessica and Aaron, a shooting star flew over, and Jenna made a wish that she wanted to be like her cousin.

When she woke up the next morning, her wish had been granted.

Jenna is now her perfect cousin Jessica-she's has friends that love her, a school and classmates that adores her....but she also has some hard classes that might hurt Jenna's brain, a childhood friend that she thought was in love with Jessica but it turns out that he's in love with her, and oh...oh. Jessica did a bad thing, and someone is blackmailing her to confess to what she did.

Also Jenna's presence is disappearing from everyone's memories.

Oof.

Jenna is trying to figure out where Jessica went once she made the wish, and she teams up with Aaron to find out what happened and how to get the both of them back, and when she does find out where Jessica was at the end, the two forgave one another, Jenna confronted the blackmailer who wants Jessica to apologize for plagerizing her work, and almost got into a fight with a jealous boy, like Jenna was, with Jessica after she won an award that was named after his grandmother.

I really did like this book because it does hit home in places I didn't think it would hit. This is my second favorite Ann Liang novel, and I want to read more of her books because I found my new auto-buy author.

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